In response to quake boy's post, here is the output of

Ifconfig eth0 up:

eth0: link up, 100mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1

cat /etc/network/interfaces output:

the loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

#The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

This implies that eth0 was down, I think. There should be something in the response from "dmesg" that's relevant to eth0 now.
Is it working now that you ran "ifconfig eth0 up"? I don't see anything in the interfaces file that would account for the problem you're having. The interfaces entries should have connected you and gotten an ip address from your router assuming the router's not bad. Can you give us the output from "ifconfig" again? This time it should have an entry for eth0, and with any luck, it'll have an address. If not, try running either "dhclient eth0" or "dhcpcd eth0" and then checking ifconfig again. You'll have one of those commands, but probably not both.

Ok for some reason it just works now!!!

I'm so excited. I can see my LAN ip, and apt-get works just fine.

I guess clicking the power button on the computer, and the reboot command in linux are completely different things.

Thanks so much

"I'm so excited."

Believe it or not, I am too! It is so rewarding when I'm able to help someone out of trouble. Cheers!